The Patient Observer Part 11

"Harding," I said, "you were insisting only a little while ago that life is always beautiful."

"So it is," he replied, too listless to be defiant. "To some people."

"To whom?"

"Well, to the two here, for instance," and he pointed to a pair of handsome lovers playing golf all over a double page in the advertising section of his magazine. "Do you mean to say these two ever know what ugliness is, or pain, or want? Or ever grow old? Or cease to love? Here is the perfect life for you."

"Are you so sure of that?" said some one over my shoulder, and I turned about sharply to look into the most entrancing face I have ever beheld in man or woman. It was Apollo standing there above me, or if not he, at least one of the divine youths that the Greeks have left for us in undying marble. He made Scipione's grimy cellar luminous with beauty.

"I beg your pardon for intruding," he said, seating himself at our table as joyously confident and as simple as an immortal should be. "But I feel myself competent to speak on the point you have raised because the Advertising Supplement you refer to is my own home. This very young man playing golf is, as you will observe, no other than myself."

There was no denying the amazing resemblance.

"You say the Advertising Supplement is your home," I collected myself sufficiently to ask, "but just how do you mean that?"

"Literally," he replied. "My whole life, and for that matter my parents'

life before me, has been spent in the pages you are now fingering. My name is Pinckney, Walter Pinckney, and if you are sufficiently interested in my career I should be glad to describe it."

"Go ahead," cried Harding, with almost ferocious earnestness.

"If I begin a bit back before my birth," said Pinckney, "you will be patient with me. I will not detain you very long."

"Begin where you please," said Harding in the same grim manner; "only begin."

"My father," commenced young Pinckney, "at eighteen, was a sickly country lad with less than the usual elementary education and no other prospects than a life of drudgery on the old farm. But there was in him an elemental strength of will that was sufficient, as it turned out, to master fate. You have read his life again and again in the Advertising Pages of our magazines. On his nineteenth birthday, as I have heard him tell many a time, he began the reshaping of his life by investing the small sum of fifty cents in a manual of home exercise and enrolling himself at the same time with one of our best-known correspondence schools, which offered an attractive course in engineering and scientific irrigation. Simultaneously, from that day he carried on the work of his bodily and intellectual redemption. We still have at home a collection of the various domestic utensils which he employed in his daily training--an old armchair; a broom; a large gilt portrait frame through which he would leap twenty-five times every morning; a marble clock; a pair of water buckets; an old trunk lid, and other articles of the kind. Close beside his gymnastic apparatus we keep three trunkfuls of note-books and reports representing as many years devoted labour at his studies. At the age of twenty-six my father was a veritable Hercules and held the position of a.s.sistant to the chief engineer of an important Eastern railroad. It was shortly after he had won this place that he met my mother."

The caressing fondness with which he uttered the last word imparted to his seemingly supreme beauty an added warmth of appeal.

"Her, too, you have met in the Advertising Columns. She had begun to teach school when a mere girl; but when her father's death threw upon her young shoulders the burden of three little children and a helpless mother, she had risen to her greater needs. She succeeded in quadrupling her income by learning to write short stories, criticism, and verse, from a literary bureau which charged her a nominal fee for instruction and purchased her output at extremely generous rates for disposal among the leading magazines. When my father first saw her--it was in the course of a Fourth of July excursion to Niagara Falls which, including a three days' stay at the best hotels, was offered to the public at half the usual cost--she had sent the eldest boy through college, her younger sister was teaching school, and she was free to follow the inclinations of her heart."

"You were fortunate in the selection of your immediate ancestry," said Harding.

"Was I not?" Pinckney responded in a flush of grateful recognition. "But that is not all. The house in which I was born, though generally recognized as one of the finest examples of Queen Anne architecture in reinforced concrete, was put up by my father, una.s.sisted, from plans which he purchased for a ridiculously small sum. Its every nook was the abiding-place of love, of quiet content, and of nurturing comfort. The furnace was equipped with the latest automatic devices so that it had to be started only once a year. It was then left to the care of my mother, who used to give it only a few minutes' attention every day without going to the trouble of divesting herself of the gown of fine white lawn which she always wore."

"My dear fellow," I could not keep from exclaiming, "you have almost explained yourself. In such surroundings how could you help growing up into what you are?"

"That is what I say, sir," he came back at me eagerly. "But you must call to mind, also, the fostering personal care that was bestowed upon us children. Take the matter of diet. Coffee, cocoa, excessive sweets, every food-element tending to narcotise or over-stimulate the system was rigorously excluded. Instead we had the numerous grain preparations that a.s.sist nature by contributing directly to the development of our particular faculties. In my case, for instance, it had been decided some time before I was born that in the course of time I should enter West Point. With that end in view Farinette, because of its muscle-building powers, was made the princ.i.p.al const.i.tuent of my bill of fare. Later, when my parents thought that the pulpit offered better chances of a successful career, Farinette was replaced by Panema, which is notably efficacious in the production of cerebral tissue. Just as I was taking my examinations for college it was finally determined that the sphere of corporation finance held out unrivalled facilities for advancement, and Panema gave way to Hydronuxia, which acts particularly on the imaginative faculties. As for my sisters, they fared no worse than I.

You surely have seen them in the Advertising Pages in all their splendid bloom. Saved from overwork by soaps that make heavy washing a pleasure, eternally youthful through the use of electric ma.s.sage, they smile at you through the reticulations of the tennis racket which the champion played with at Newport, or recline under parasols in the bow of canoes that will neither sink nor upset. They are very fond of playing Chopin on a mechanical piano while the moonlight streams over the floor of the open veranda."

Here Harding broke in sharply. "You began by differing with me on the possibility of finding complete happiness in life, and you have done nothing but refute your own position from the very first. I admit there are certain essentials toward the perfect life that you have not mentioned, but I haven't the least doubt that you already possess them or that they will come to you in time. I mean such things as riches or love."

"Ah, love," Pinckney murmured, and the shadow of a cloud pa.s.sed over his divine brow.

"Surely," I said, "_you_ have not sought for what love has to give and sought in vain?"

"No," he replied thoughtfully, "I have not failed to win love. But does love bring with it untouched felicity; that is what I ask." He hesitated. "I will not attempt to describe her. I really could not, you know, except in a feeble way, by saying that even to other eyes than mine she is a woman more wonderful than any of my sisters, if that is at all possible. We loved at first sight. I had run down for a Sunday afternoon to Garden Towers-by-the-Sea, a beautiful suburb which a number of enterprising citizens had built up out of a sand waste to meet the needs of the tired urban worker who, in his expensive and uncomfortable city flat, finds himself longing for the life-giving breeze of the ocean and the sight of a bit of G.o.d's open country. I was walking down the main street of the village, wearing the loosely shaped and well-padded garments that were then popular with young men, and carrying a set of golf-sticks in my right hand and a bull terrier under my arm. Then I saw her. She was sitting on the porch of the house which her father had purchased for one-third of what its value became when the completion of extensive rapid-transit improvements brought it within thirty-five minutes of the New York City Hall. We loved and told each other. My father, at first, insisted that before a.s.suming the responsibilities of marriage a man should be in receipt of a larger independent income than I could boast of. But when Alice pleaded that she could be of help by raising high-grade poultry for the urban market and organising subscribers' clubs for the magazines, my father yielded. We are to be married in two months, sir."

Harding spoke up impatiently. "Still I fail to see where your unhappiness lies."

"Did I say unhappiness? That is not at all the word, sir. It is rather a sense of awe that seizes us both at times, when we are together, as though we were in the presence of unseen influences; as though, rather, a world not our own were projecting itself into our well-defined lives.

I have shown you that Alice and I belong to a very real, very matter-of-fact world. But there are times when we seem to be walking in a land of strange sounds and sights and of shadows that fan our cheeks as they flit by."

"Oh, well," I said, "when two fond young people are together the limits of the visible world are apt to undergo undue extension."

"Let me be specific," said Pinckney. "We first became aware of this state of things some weeks ago. We were walking one afternoon at twilight through a stretch of woods not far from the sh.o.r.e when all at once we were conscious that the familiar aspect of things had vanished.

The park had become a virgin forest. Two savage figures girded with skins were panting in deadly combat. One had sunk his thumbs into the eye-sockets of his opponent, who, in turn, had buried his teeth in the flesh of the other's arm. A wild creature, almost hidden in the long tangle of her hair, crouched there, the only spectator of the battle, chanting in weird tones: 'Ai! Ai! the call of the wild summons you to the death-grapple, oh Men, and me to sing who am Woman! Fight on, oh Men; for it is Good! The Race, the Sons of your strong loins through the dizzy whirl-dance of all time, are watching you. Match man-strength against man-strength, breath-rhythm against breath-rhythm, and knee-thrust against knee-thrust!' And then one of the combatants fell, and the victor with a yell of triumph seized the woman by the hair and, flinging her over his shoulder, staggered off, and we heard them call to each other, 'Oh, my Male!' 'Oh, my Female!' Then we were in our own grove by the beach and Alice whispered dreamily, 'Dearest, how tame are our lives.'"

"I think I begin to understand," said I. "What happened was simply that you had walked right out of the Advertising Supplement into the Fiction pages; and that was Jack London. Had you other experiences of the kind?"

"On another occasion," he resumed, "we were walking on the beach and again in a flash we had lost our footing in the world we knew. We were in a magnificent ballroom. The chandeliers were Venetian, the orchestra was Hungarian, the decorations were priceless orchids. Every woman wore a tiara with chains of pearls. There were stout dowagers, callow youths, gamblers, and blacklegs, and, among the many handsome men, one of about five-and-thirty, with a wonderfully cut chin, bending sedulously over a glorious, slender girl whose eyes attested the purity of her soul and fidelity unto death. 'Dearest,' she was saying, 'what does it matter that my father was the greatest Greek scholar in America and my mother the most beautiful woman south of Mason and Dixon's line? What that I have ten million dollars and can ride, shoot, swim, golf, tennis, dance, sing, compose, cook, and interpret the Irish sagas? I love you though you have only twelve thousand a year.' And all over the hall we caught such phrases as, 'Yes, he dropped 25,000 on Non Sequitur at Bennings.'

'Oh, just down for three weeks at Palm Beach, you know.' 'Two millions in three weeks, they say, mostly out of Copper and Q.C.B.' 'Yes, just back from South Dakota on the best of terms.' Then the room vanished, we were by the sea, and Alice said wistfully, 'How limited our lives are, dear.'"

I said: "My theory holds good. That was Robert Chambers, I am sure. Go on."

"I have told you enough," said Pinckney, "to show what I mean by the shadow over our happiness. It will pa.s.s away, of course. In the meantime I try to explain to Alice that these are phantoms we vision, of no relation to the practical life that we must lead on our side of the boundary line; I tell her that these things we see are not, and never have been and never will be. Am I right, do you think, sir?"

"Quite right," I told him.

x.x.xI

THE COMPLETE COLLECTOR--IV

"My latest fad," said Cooper, "is this little library of the greatest names in literature. It is by no means complete, but the nucleus is there."

When Cooper speaks of his fads he does himself injustice. The world might think them fads, or worse. But I, who know the man, know that his fondness for the insignificant or the extraordinary is something more than eccentricity, something more than a collector's appet.i.te run amuck.

In reality, Cooper's soul goes out to the worthless objects he frequently brings together into odd little museums. He loves them precisely because they are insignificant. His whole life has been a silent protest against the arrogance of success, of high merit, of rare value. His heart is always on the side of the _Untermensch_, a name given by the Germans, a learned people, to what we call the under-dog.

"My collection," said Cooper, "is as yet confined almost entirely to authors in the English language. Here is my Shakespeare, a first edition, I believe, though undated. The year, I presume, was about 1875.

The t.i.tle, you see, is comprehensive: 'The Nature of Evaporating Inflammations in Arteries After Ligature, Accupressure, and Torsion.'

Edward O. Shakespeare, who wrote the book, is not a debated personality.

His authorship of the book is unquestioned, and I a.s.sure you it is a comfort to handle a text which you know left its author's mind exactly as it now confronts you in the page.

"Next to the Shakespeare you find my d.i.c.kens volumes, two in number.

Albert d.i.c.kens published, in 1904, his 'Tests of Forest Trees.' It has been praised in authoritative quarters as an excellent work of its kind.

An older book is 'd.i.c.kens's Continental A B C,' a railway guide which I am fond of thinking of as the probable instrument of a vast amount of human happiness. Imagine the happy meetings and reunions which this chubby little book has made possible--husbands and wives, fathers and children, lovers, who from the most distant corners of the earth have sought and found each other by means of the d.i.c.kens railway time-tables.

To how many beds of illness has it brought a comforter, to how many habitations of despair--but I must not preach. I call your attention to the next volume, Byron. From the t.i.tle, 'A Handbook of Lake Minnetonka,'

you will perceive that it is in the same cla.s.s as my d.i.c.kens."

Cooper drew his handkerchief to flip the dust from a thin octavo in sheepskin. "This Emerson," he said, "is the earliest in date of my Americana. William Emerson's 'A Sermon on the Decease of the Rev. Peter Thacher' appeared in 1802, at a time when people still thought it worth while to utilise the death of a good man by putting him into a book for the edification of the living. The adjoining two volumes are by Spencer.

Charles E. Spencer's 'Rue, Thyme, and Myrtle' is a sheaf of dainty poetry which was very popular in Philadelphia during the second decade after the Civil War. Do we still write poetry as single-heartedly as people did? It may be. Perhaps we might find out by comparing this other volume by Edwin Spencer, 'Cakes and Ale,' published in 1897, with the Philadelphia Spencer of forty years ago.

"I must hurry you through the rest of my books," said Cooper. "Thomas James Thackeray's 'The Soldier's Manual of Rifle-Firing' appeared in 1858, and undoubtedly had its day of usefulness. Thomas Kipling was professor of divinity at Cambridge University toward the end of the eighteenth century. In 1793 he edited the volume I now hold in my hand, 'Codex Bezae,' one of the most precious of our extant MSS. of the New Testament. I like to think of that fine old Cambridge professor's name as bound up with patient, self-effacing scholarship and a highly developed spirituality. But I digress. Cast your eye over this little group of foreign writers. Here is Dumas,--Jean Baptiste Dumas,--whose 'Lecons sur la philosophic chimique,' delivered in 1835, were considered worthy of being published thirty years later. The quaint volume that comes next is by Du Maurier, who was French amba.s.sador to the Hague about 1620. The t.i.tle, in the Dutch, is 'Propositie gedan door den Heere van Maurier,' etc.--'Propositions Advanced by the Sieur du Maurier,' one of the Regent's able and merry-hearted diplomats, I take it. And here is Goethe; he would repay your reading. Rudolf Goethe's 'Mitteilungen ueber Obst- und Gartenbau' is one of the standard works on horticulture.

"And finally," said Cooper with a flash of pride quite unusual in him, "the treasure of my little library--Homer; again a first edition."